Book Review: Long Way Home by Nicola Marsh (Brockenridge #1)
Another Aussie rural romance which I found to be a little underwhelming…
The main romantic plot strictly follows the rural romance rules. The heroine, Ruby, returns to her [fictional] hometown, Brockenridge, when her mother passes away. She’d left for the big city after being bullied and accused of stealing. Upon returning, she finds out she’s inherited a roadhouse from her mother and, of course, meets back up with her old crush, Connor. Their conflict is that Connor’s family wants to buy out and demolish the roadhouse to make way for a golf course and resort.
There’s a secondary romantic plot. It features two of the roadhouse employees, Alisha and Harry. I preferred this pairing as they were older but their plot and conflict were still pretty cliched. (I guessed Harry’s secret immediately; I’ve read many many romances where the hero has kept his distance for the exact same reason.)
Despite having two couples and, therefore, twice the conflict (apparently), Marsh still struggled in this arena. In fact, to be honest, the conflict of both storylines was pretty awful. The characters had arguments about nothing really and everything could have been sorted out in five minutes flat.
Marsh has written many romance novels, so I also expected her to write chemistry and sexual tension better. It was pretty forced between both couples. A bit of show, not tell, would not have gone astray either. Oh boy, there was a lot of repetition of the inner thoughts of the four characters. I did start to skim after reading about Ruby or Alisha being bullied, Connor’s sad family life, or that Ruby should have returned from Melbourne sooner for the umpteemth time.
The Aussie setting was just okay. There were some things which were authentic but others… I must admit I was sort of confused about the roadhouse itself! I didn’t find it a very Australian establishment. A roadhouse to me is an extension of a service station (gas station) where you can grab some fast food and visit the restroom. Marsh had apparently gone on a Patrick Swayze binge somewhere around the time of writing this as it was more like some odd mixture of a pub/club/restaurant.
Anyway, I guess I’ll still give the next book a go, but overall, Long Way Home was pretty disappointing. 2 ½ out of 5
readwritewish 